On some Saturday nights, when the stages are jammed and the parking seems impossible, it’s hard to think of the Denver Performing Arts Complex as anything except a robust success. But three decades in, the city-owned arts center finds itself facing the kind of challenges that would make a for-profit business very concerned about its bottom line: unstable tenants, inefficient facilities, stagnant offerings and, on too many evenings, dark venues.
The signature arts groups the DPAC was built to support — the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Ballet and Opera Colorado — seem to trade off financial crises these days, and there’s little reason to think things will stabilize. They still produce high-quality work, and they draw crowds, but their traditional, European art doesn’t hold much allure for Denver’s two fastest-growing demographic groups, Latinos and young adults.
“It’s a situation that has to be dealt with,” said Kent Rice, who heads the Denver Arts and Venues department. He positions himself like the landlord he is to the city’s cultural treasures, and also like the businessman he was before taking the job.
But that’s the point. DPAC needs to run more like a business than a bureaucracy, he believes. It has to focus on its customers — the diverse citizens of Denver — and keep its products essential to civic life.
That doesn’t mean it can’t be a benevolent business, Rice says, and a list of changes Arts and Venues is putting on the table for DPAC’s future has the health of its big three occupants much in mind.
But they all reposition the complex, and its 12-acre campus, as a more populist place, less a bastion of fine art and more of a communal zone where people gather, day and night, for everything from taco festivals to shopping excursions.
Among the big ideas laid out in A&V’s recent DPAC master plan proposal:
• Turning Sculpture Park, along Speer Boulvard, into an outdoor amphitheater with a lineup of 50 concerts and other events in the summer.
• Realigning the size and purpose of venues — including carving up Boettcher Concert Hall — so smaller organizations can use DPAC. Possible presenters might include the High Plains Comedy Festival, the Phamaly theater troupe and the experimental Control Group Productions.
• Converting the exterior galleria spaces, under the signature curved glass ceiling, into more of an urban streetscape with art exhibitions, fairs, retail outlets and cafe-style eateries that draw crowds who don’t go for Beethoven and Verdi.
The goal is to get more people to the complex more often and at all different times. The complex is a virtual ghost town during daylight hours, and the theaters are used only about 50 percent of the time at night.
But A&V is also proposing significant changes that will shake up the way its three main tenants do business. (DPAC’s fourth major occupant, the Denver Center Theatre Company, manages its own venues independently.)
Those proposals include:
• Building a shared box office to replace the separate box offices serving the Boettcher Theatre, Buell Theatre and the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. That would eliminate the confusion patrons can face at show time and allow the organizations to streamline the cost of selling tickets.
• Moving the Colorado Symphony Orchestra into the Ellie Caulkins Opera House to free up the Boettcher space for other groups.
• Transferring control of the day-to-day DPAC operations from A&V to a new entity with a board of directors representing the orchestra, opera, ballet, theater company and other stakeholders. In essence, the A&V would end its formal role as property manager, allowing the nonprofits a bigger say in the center’s future.
All three of the proposals come with costs for the tenants. Taking broader operations responsibilities would mean greater management expenses. Moving the orchestra would mean refitting the Ellie with a band shell that would costs tens of thousands of dollars.
Moreover, the three companies would compete heavily for the best performance dates at the Ellie. The organizations do not have a history of cooperation; disagreements and rivalries, not always in the best interest of business, are not uncommon.
But Rice believes there are benefits of shaking up the status quo that could lure them into an association. The larger entity would be more attractive to sponsors and advertisers, and that could mean real dollars for groups that need them. The entity could also take control of the revenues from parking and concessions that A&V now keeps for itself.
That’s enough for all three groups, plus the theater company, to be continuing the discussions. Jerry Kern, who runs the orchestra, by far the largest player of the three, said his organization is keeping an open mind.
So is the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, which gives money to cultural interests in the city. The foundation has hired the San Francisco-based WolfBrown arts consulting group to push the matter along. A study now underway will look at DPAC, but also examine the way each of the players runs its own organization. The Central City Opera company, which now performs at the DPAC once a year, is also taking part.
“Three of the four major performing arts groups in the complex are longtime grantees, and we feel they are really important to the cultural infrastructure of the city,” said Bonfils CEO Gary P. Steuer. “We have skin in the game.”
Rice believes the changes are fundamental, though he labels them as “what-ifs” rather than mandates. He expects the study will determine what is possible and what isn’t. But, he said, DPAC has to remain dynamic and it has to broaden its appeal if it wants to stay relevant.
“If Arts & Venues doesn’t put forth a vision for the arts complex, who will?” he said.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi
